


Saccharomyces

by lazarwolff



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - No Kaiju, Anti-Capitalism, F/M, M/M, Starbucks is the Kaiju, Trans Character, anti-military
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-10-05 00:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17314724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarwolff/pseuds/lazarwolff
Summary: An alternate universe where everyone is into saving the world with good food.





	1. Chapter 1

The loaf is the colour of rust, and the crust is this side of well-done. Hermann sniffs, but gamely pulls it apart, ignoring the oil that came with it. The baking co-op in his college’s little town has always been redolent with lovely smells, but even though he is pursuing study as a pastry chef, Hermann never thought to come here until Mako practically kidnapped him, driving him here in her boyfriend’s battered blue Jeep.

It’s quiet at ten in the morning. The only other person is a scruffy looking student drinking a black coffee and cradling his head in his hand while he stares out the window, book seemingly forgotten.

“You will love it,” Mako promises as she cracks the top of her creme brulee with a little silver spoon. “They have a night baker here, and he has all his own cultures and grinds his own flour. it’s what’s so different from the other bakeries around.”

Hermann tastes the bread, and gets a face full of field aroma before the flavour, burnished like its colour, takes over. He can’t place the flavour, but it’s deep and sour and the crumb is cakey like good German bread. It’s not sandwich bread- it’s meant to be eaten just like this. Mako grins.

“I told you,” she says.

“This is remarkable,” Hermann says, staring at the bread. “I didn’t realize you could get bread like this in the United States.”

“You should meet the baker,” Mako says. “He has a unique system.”

“I would love to meet him, do you think he’d be open to a night where I could  _stage?”_ Hermann asks eagerly.

“Ask him,” Mako says, and gestures to the fellow by the window. Hermann looks again, notices the white flour all over the man’s hands. It might be early for college students, but ten in the morning is late by night baking standards. Loathe to approach someone who’s just off the clock, but terribly excited at the prospect of meeting him, Hermann stands and walks over.

“Good morning,” he says awkwardly. “Did you make this bread?”

The man lifts his head from his palm, and puts on a pair of glasses before examining the loaf.

“Naw,” he says. “I’m just the baker. The dough is made by cities of microbes and stuff.”

“It’s the best bread I’ve ever tasted,” Hermann says, blinking at this curious response. “I’m studying to be a pastry chef at the cooking school. I was hoping, if you don’t mind, could I watch your process?”

“I don’t have a process, dude, I just stick it in the oven,” the baker says, and Hermann blinks again.

“The flavour…”

“That’s the starter. You’re welcome to watch my starters. I think they’re fascinating, but maybe a  _pastry chef_ would get bored.”

The touch of disdain in the man’s voice is thoroughly uncalled for, and to Hermann’s ears a challenge.

“I might surprise you,” he says. The baker nods, and holds out a floury hand.

“Newt,” he says.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Newt. So let’s go meet the yeast fam.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s late the next night. Hermann wishes he’d had a coffee or a tea before coming to the little bakery. Newt is wired, far more energetic than he was yesterday morning.

“All right, ready for this?” he says with a wide grin, and holds the kitchen’s door open for Hermann with a sweeping bow. “I gotta say, I’m pretty excited for the company.”

“I hope I don’t distract you…”

“Dude, I  _need_ the distraction.”

Newt unveils his fermentation station; three large food grade buckets situated under the kitchen’s sink and filled halfway with starters of varying consistencies, blue painter’s tape on the outside denoting percentages in a messy scrawl. There’s the strong scent of yeast and Hermann can actually  _hear_  them.

“They’re singing,” Newt says proudly, and sticks his ungloved hand right into a bucket.  _Disgusting._ “They know their mummy, don’t they?”

“When you’ve finished fondling your levain, perhaps you could walk me through the process?”

“I need to touch them,” Newt says. “It’s how they know it’s me.”

“They don’t know anything,” Hermann sniffs.

“Well, that’s your opinion,” Newt says, scratches his ear with the hand not immersed in starter. “A  _wrong_ opinion, I might add. Yeast knows lots. Without it we’d be eating grains in hard flatbreads like Mesopotamians, and that’s no way to live, dude. Anyway, if you wanna make good bread, with lift and stuff, you have to touch it. I could give you the recipe, but if you do it with gloves and in a sterile condition, you’re going to get a sterile bread.”

“Very well,” Hermann says. “So let’s do it your way.”

Newt explains the process thoroughly and patiently, and Hermann wonders why he isn’t a teacher. In the downtime between proofs, Newt puts on a pot of coffee and offers Hermann a cookie from the bakery’s day olds, which he gratefully accepts.

“So why do you want to be a pastry chef?” Newt asks. Hermann straightens.

“The precision,” he says, and rubs his leg absentmindedly. “Within the world of pastry, there is rigour and rules, and if one has the patience and the skill, they can extemporise within those limits.”

“Oh man, you’re an intellectual,” Newt says, rapping a fork against the table.

“Well, why do you bake?” Hermann asks, a little offended. Newt shrugs.

“Makes me happy, and I’m good at it,” he says. “What other reason is there to do things?”

Hermann blinks while Newt sips his coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> crossposted from tumblr, I can be found at fingalruche.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

They close the co-op for the week leading up until Christmas through to New Year’s. Newt has always taken this time to deep clean the bakery and make any renovations as he sees fit. This year, he has a more complex project in mind. It’s a lot of work, but he has daylight to burn and podcasts to catch up on.

Despite his seeming contempt for everything Newt does in the bakery, Hermann is lately spending more nights with him, even baking pastry and large trays of cinnamon buns that Newt won’t admit are the best he’s ever had. It’s not hard to notice that the kitchen wasn’t built for cane users, but in a week this has been rectified. Not just for Hermann, Newt reminds himself, Hermann who’s going to get a real job as a great pastry chef one day, and won’t even be in the same city, probably. This is for the overall health of the kitchen.

The counters are now low enough that someone who is sitting can work comfortably at them. There’s a ramp into the kitchen now (sure, a community operated kitchen but a good part of the community can’t get in? Fixed) and a lowered sink as well. The overhead racks of equipment can be lowered via a crank, there are handles on the sides of all the work areas, and the floors are slip proof, which was a long time coming anyhow.

Newt’s painting the walls, a mossy green he’s had his eye on since approximately fifteen seconds after the last repaint, and he doesn’t hear the door open. When Hermann clears his throat, Newt  _does not_ shriek, and calmly gets off the ladder.

“Kitchen’s closed,” he says, gesturing with his paintbrush.

“What’s happened in here?” Hermann asks, eyes narrowing while he tries to figure out what’s different.

“I remodelled,” Newt says. “Kitchen was built in the sixties, and it needs a little loving every five years or so. Why aren’t you home for the holidays?”

“I prefer to stay here for the winter,” Hermann says. “Besides, Hanukkah was early this year and I don’t celebrate Christmas.”

“You’re Jewish? I did not know that.” Newt wanders over to the walk in. “Me too.”

“Did you lower all the counters?”

“Yeah.”

“For what possible purpose?”

“So someone-”  _so you_  “-can sit and work. I’m getting complacent in my old age.”

“You are younger than me.”

“Even so.”

Hermann looks around for a little longer, at the bars on the sides of counter, and looks back at Newt.

“It’s very good work,” he says. “I didn’t know you were so handy.”

“Yeah, if you ever have anything from IKEA you need built, I’m your guy,” Newt grins, and runs a hand through his hair, probably getting paint in it from the irritated look on Hermann’s face, but he doesn’t care. “Seeing as you schlepped out here in all that snow, can I get you a tea or something? Kettle doesn’t need to be renovated.”

“I won’t say no to tea.”

“I’ll meet you out there. Lemme just get cleaned up.”

While the kettle boils, he gets out the mason jar filled with starter from the fridge. He was going to give it to Hermann in the new year, and now it will look a little like a belated Hanukkah present, or, god forbid, a Christmas present, but it’s possible Hermann is just as unsentimental as he pretends it to be and will see that it’s not a  _gift_  or anything, just a present.

“That doesn’t make sense, dude,” he says sternly to himself. “Get it together.”

Hermann has chosen the window table in the restaurant, fiddling with a corner of the tablecloth. He almost looks nervous, and Newt can’t imagine why, until he sees the box on the table, neatly wrapped in parchment paper.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Hermann says, looking distinctly sheepish. “You’ve been very generous with your time this semester.”

“I don’t mind at all,” Newt promises, sets down the tea tray and plonks the starter down in front of Hermann. “That just makes this less weird. It’s my basic starter. I know you like the commercial yeast for your work, because it’s consistent and stuff, but you might like to see what happens with some of this bad boy. Or you might like to bake bread at home I don’t know…”

“Thank you,” Hermann says sincerely.

“It aims to please. The yeast,” Newt says, looking down. “Once it figures out what you want, it adapts.”

“I know,” Hermann smiles, and gestures to the box. “You should open it.”

It’s a packet of seeds, Red Fife wheat, a strain with a great flavour that Newt tasted in Canada and has raved about ever since.

“For the garden. When you can plant it,” Hermann explains. Newt nods.

“This is incredibly thoughtful,” he says. “I figured you hated me.”

“Likewise,” Hermann says. “It’s nice to be wrong, once in a while.”

_“Once in a while?”_

And they’re back in an argument, while it snows outside and their hearts are full.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red Fife is a real wheat and if you can get a loaf made with it YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD.


	4. Chapter 4

Raleigh is still sleeping when Mako wakes up at quarter to six. She kisses his forehead, smiles when he crinkles it unconsciously. Then she’s on to getting ready. She puts on socks the night before for her early mornings, and for some reason that makes her that much more efficient when she’s getting ready; in two minutes she’s dressed and brushing her teeth in their shared bathroom, squinting in the mirror at her own tired face.

Early starts were easy in the military, maybe because there was little choice in the matter and no tempting bed or bedfellow to leave for the coming of the new day. These days Mako feels herself becoming less disciplined, nearly slovenly. It doesn’t affect her work, and Raleigh seems to think that it’s a sign her body is making its own schedule now, and not just obeying that of her old job.

_ Maybe,  _ she thinks.  _ Or maybe I’m just getting soft. _

The Raleigh in her head asks what the problem would be with that, and to her frustration, she doesn’t have an answer.

Mako saves changing into her chef whites for when she gets to the kitchen, so they’re just as pressed and spotless as they are in the ziploc bags she puts them in the night before. This is so everyone in the kitchen knows to respect her and most importantly not to interrupt her with non-vital things while she stands in the walk-in and does inventory, and then rolls up her sleeves and starts prep for the day.

Her shift passes and she leaves shortly after service, declining the invitation to drink with the line cooks in the closed down bar. Raleigh is outside in their car, and gives her a steaming thermos of hot chocolate once she slumps in.

“Happy weekend,” he says, and leans over to kiss her cheek. “I’m thinking we can order in. Pizza?”

“Yeah,” she says, and takes a deep drink of the hot chocolate. Raleigh was good enough to top it with whipped cream, even though it was going in a thermos and the effect isn’t apparent.

They pick up a large pizza on the way home, extra cheese on Raleigh’s side and roasted garlic, onions and spinach on Mako’s.

“You are lucky we’re married. This is not a first date pizza,” Raleigh says, and Mako smirks.

“It’s a last date pizza if you aren’t careful,” she says, knowing that Raleigh is going to zero in on the in-between pieces anyway, the ones with both their toppings. “How was your day?”

“Good,” Raleigh says. “Physical therapy didn’t suck today.”

“It went well?”

“Well, Herc still thinks the arm won’t grow back, so,” Raleigh says, tone light. “You know, total bust. Saw some birds though, after, and I took pictures of the lake.”

They pull up to the house, and Mako brings in the pizza before she changes into pyjamas. They have a backed up Netflix queue that they need to get through- one and a half new seasons of  _ Chef’s Table  _ and then their annual rewatch of  _ Mad Men.  _ Raleigh gets the beer, and Mako flops on the couch, grabbing a piece of pizza.

“Come here,” she says, holding out her free arm so Raleigh can curl into her. She starts their queue and he takes an in-between piece of pizza.


	5. Chapter 5

He really didn’t realize what it would be to wake up and have Mako with him, Raleigh thinks, watching the ceiling and letting his hand tangle in her hair. She works too hard, doesn’t even consider it overworking because her workplace isn’t a literal warzone anymore.

He lays there for a couple minutes more, and then goes to his darkroom to develop yesterday’s film. He understands that digital photography is the way of the world these days, but he can’t help preferring analog. The fact that it takes longer, take more effort, turns it into a practice. He feels pretentious when he thinks this. Mako understands. She prefers the ritual of effort too.

Raleigh’s liking birds as a subject these days, likes that he can inhabit a stillness which allows him to get close to them, capture them even though they are free. He can spend hours on a beach watching them, taking pictures, and it feels better than spending hours with the other stuff, the memories he wishes he could control.

His arm, the one that’s not there, itches. He scratches his thigh absentmindedly while he watches the images develop. He can smell coffee from downstairs, bacon. Mako must be up. After a few more minutes, he leaves the dark room, and comes downstairs.

“Hey,” he says. Mako looks up with a little smile, and pushes bacon around in her pan. “Good sleep?”

“Yeah.”

Raleigh steals a rasher of bacon, but Mako steps on his foot until he puts it back.

“Not ready yet,” she mutters.

“You’re going to burn it.”

“Yes.”

His bacon is slightly less burnt than Mako’s, at least. She piles her sticks of fatty smoke on an equally well done piece of toast, formerly a loaf of milk bread from Newt, and crunches contentedly.

“What are you up to today?” she asks.

“Going to the lake again. I think it froze overnight, so it’s going to be beautiful, especially come the sunset,” Raleigh says. “I would get up early and catch the sunrise, but fuck getting up, honestly.”

“ _ Fuck  _ getting up,” Mako nods sagely, and hesitates. “My dad might come by for a visit. He finds himself in town. He’s doing a workshop at the culinary school and thought we might go to dinner together, this weekend. Would you be up for that?”

“That sounds thoroughly pleasant,” Raleigh says. “No other special reason from your dad?”

“You know I can’t be sure of that,” Mako’s forehead creases. “But I think he might just want to see us. He must be lonely.”

“I guess so.”

Mako’s unease with her father visiting is… new, Raleigh is pretty sure.

“You know I like your dad,” he says, probing.

“Yeah,” Mako says. “I don’t know. We’re having a weird time right now. He has been distant lately but keeps trying to reach out after being unavailable for a long time. And now he’s visiting on his own terms.”

“Sounds like he’s trying to tell you something, but doesn’t know how.”

“I didn’t think like that.”

Mako is finished her bacon, and gets up to bring her plate to the sink.

“Anyway, dinner is on him, so we should choose somewhere expensive,” she calls from the kitchen.


	6. Chapter 6

Newt doesn’t like to generalize, but college students are flakes. He woke up before his shift to a text from Reg, the kid who’s supposed to open the co-op, asking him if he can open instead, ‘seeing as you’ll be there anyway.’ And Newt texts back np because it’s true, he will be there. He’s pretty resigned to college student excuses or lack thereof, anyhow; years of waiting on overdue papers and hearing about dubiously dead grandparents saw to that.

Night baking is one of the tasks where it doesn’t matter if Newt’s head is full of stuff. He trusts the process, and it carries him through the shift just like usual. He doesn’t even burn anything this time, which sometimes happens when he’s deep enough in a funk. He puts everything out, and gets ready for the open.

It’s busy for a Wednesday, but if Newt can hang on for another hour, Tendo’s coming in for his shift and then Newt can go home and sleep. Luckily, there’s no such thing as a baking emergency. If people wait a couple minutes more for their coffee and pastry because it’s just Newt and his retail/people skills are rusty, then it’s not a big deal.

“Dude, what are you still doing here?” Tendo asks, rushing in and washing his hands. “Where’s Reg?”

“Reg couldn’t come in,” Newt says. “Sick or something.”

“Or something,” Tendo says with a frown. “I’ll talk to him. Thanks for holding down the fort, brother. I’ve got this now.”

“I’m going to be in the back, if you need me,” Newt says, and shuts his eyes briefly. He doesn’t really want to go home. There’s nothing in the fridge and he didn’t make his bed last night, or take out the garbage now that he’s thinking about the things he didn’t do yesterday that he should have done. There must be something he can do here to keep him from his shitty apartment.

Instead he stands in the walk in with a clipboard, writing down  _ more eggs?  _ On it until the page is full, just so he feels like he’s doing something. His mind wanders to Hermann, who is always driven and always has something to do, even when he doesn’t. Newt wonders if Hermann will ever burn out, doubts it. Not like Newt, who disappointed everyone once upon a time and can feel that he’s on the track to do it again on a smaller scale.

“Newt?”

Oh, think of the devil. Newt attempts a smile, can feel it’s lopsided, and turns to look at Hermann.

“Hey,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Hermann frowns. “You should be sleeping.”

“I guess,” Newt says, doesn’t want to explain the whole ‘I don’t want to go back to my apartment’ deal to Hermann, but finds he can’t dam it up. “I would rather work another eighteen hours here than go home.”

“Oh,” Hermann says, and Newt tries not to cringe physically even though he’s fully shrinking inside. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault,” Newt sighs.

“You could come to my place,” Hermann says, adjusts the grip on his cane. “Sleep on my couch if you like.”

Newt stares for too long, and Hermann colours bright red before Newt remembers to use his words.

“That would be great.”

“It’s not strange?”

“No, not strange. Nice. Thank you. Sorry.”

The jumble of words is painful, but Hermann doesn’t seem to mind. They come out of the walk-in and leave the co-op. Hermann has a sensible, second hand car and clears off the front seat for Newt. In a concise five minute drive that has Newt clutching the roof handle like someone middle aged, they arrive at Hermann’s place, a sweet little house not too far from the college campus.

“I live alone,” Hermann says, and opens the door. “So make yourself at home.”

The kitchen is sizeable and surprisingly unkempt for someone as fastidious as Hermann is in a commercial kitchen. Newt wants nothing more than to open all of Hermann’s cupboards and see what he eats, but the couch beckons and he flops down, kicking off his shoes. Hermann watches with a thinly veiled distaste Newt is inured from.

“Can I make you a tea?” he asks.

“I’m good. This is perfect,” Newt mumbles into a very comfortable cushion. He’s halfway to drifting off when he feels the warm weight of a blanket on his shoulders.

When he wakes up it’s four in the afternoon and there is the smell of something delicious coming from the kitchen. He rolls off the couch, clutching the blanket around him, and shuffles over. Hermann is poking at a frying pan with a spoon and humming to himself. He isn’t cooking like he does at the co-op; he’s relaxed and even smiling. Newt clears his throat and Hermann looks up.

“Good evening,” he says. “Or morning. However you want to call it. I’m making dinner. Do you eat before your shift?”

“When it smells this good, yeah.”

Newt reaches over to grab a bit of the hash Hermann has cooking, and gets smacked with a wooden spoon.

“Patience.”

“You hit me with a spoon, dude? Not cool.”

Hermann’s smile is nearly feral.

“Welcome to my kitchen.”

Before long, Newt has a bowl of hash with a fried egg on top, and is sitting at Hermann’s dinner table, a very small table he would expect for a student residence, no matter how nice, and Hermann is cracking black pepper over his.

“So, why don’t you want to go to your house?” Hermann asks.

“Apartment,” Newt corrects, and shrugs. “Usually I can deal with it, but it’s not the best place. There’s no room for me to think, if that makes sense.”

He doesn’t regale Hermann with stories of what used to be, the extravagant city apartment he was able to afford after his first big contract with Knifehead Industries, how he came to realize personal space was a thing which could be bought, just like everything in life that makes you comfortable. He has never told Hermann about all that, and hopefully he will never have to.

“Do you have a lease you need to honour?” Hermann asks.

“Nah, it’s a pretty shabby operation. I pay by the month,” Newt says. Hermann opens his mouth, and then closes it again. “What is it?”

“If you wanted to leave,” Hermann says, very carefully. “You could move in with me. There’s an attic room I’ve been thinking of subletting.”

“I couldn’t do that, man, disturb your peace and quiet.”

“We have contraindicating schedules, so I don’t see how you possibly could,” Hermann reasons. “We would never see each other.”

“Well, hopefully not never,” Newt says, before he can stop himself. “I mean, I would see you at the bakery.”

“Yes,” Hermann says. “Obviously.”

Newt draws Hermann’s blanket around himself like Max in  _ Where the Wild Things Are,  _ and stares at his dinner, trying to remember the last time someone cooked a meal for him and failing. He tries to remember the last time he had a conversation with someone he considered a friend and not a friendly coworker, and finds he has to reach for that, too.

“If you’re serious, how fast do you think I could move in?” he says.

“I am never not serious,” Hermann says, and Newt bites back a laugh. “I can have the attic ready by tomorrow. There’s already a bed and a wardrobe.”

“That would be amazing.”

This is probably the nicest thing anybody has ever done for Newt, and the fact that it’s coming from practical, sniffy Hermann is confusing and fitting all at the same time.

“You know, you’re a highly decent human being?” he says, looking back up at Hermann. “And a good friend.”

“Hardly,” Hermann says. “I needed a sublet sooner or later.”

“Sure,  _ friend.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do you ever just want them to be roommates so bad?


	7. Chapter 7

Newt might be the most infuriating roommate of all time. Hermann can concede that living alone lost its novelty a long time ago, but Newt is…

“Must you wear your shoes indoors?” Hermann bites out.

“Uhh, as opposed to walking around with cold bare feet?” Newt says, trundling about in the kitchen. “There’s no central heating, Hermann. I need to regulate my core temperature or I’ll be shivering all the time.”

“Socks, Newt.  _ Slippers.” _

Hermann points to his own slippers, a tartan affair which were a gift from Karla. Newt laughs. The sleeves of his roomy hoodie are rolled up, exposing his horrid tattoos, and both of his hands are deep in a whole chicken which he’s preparing for dinner. In the oven, there’s a vegetable frittata. They’ve both been digging at a fresh rosemary loaf during their argument, sticking it into a bowl of olive oil with increasing fury.

“I don’t want to look like a pensioner before my time, dude. And I’m working in a kitchen. What if I drop a knife on my functionally bare feet? Shoes are the best option here.”

“What about the rest of the house? You are stomping through the living room, in the attic like the deranged first wife in a gothic novel…”

“I don’t  _ stomp… _ ”

“You absolutely stomp. I know exactly when you come back in from your night shift because you take the stairs two at the time and it sounds like you jump on them. It wakes me up.”

“Well, your late night BBC cryfests can be a little noisy. These walls? Pretty thin.”

“You’ve  _ joined  _ me on my so-called BBC cryfests.”

“Yes, and it cuts into my sleeping time.”

“Unbelievable,” Hermann says, throwing his hands up. “I don’t care where else you wear them. Just take off your shoes when you come in from work. You don’t live alone.”

Newt finally finds what he’s looking for in the chicken’s ass, and puts the giblets in a saucepan to simmer for gravy.

“Fine,” he says and washes his hands. “Should I stuff this bird?”

“As tempting as it is, I don’t want salmonella for dinner.”

“Christ, dude. I couldn’t poison you if I wanted to. Unless you think I’m so undisciplined I just disregard everything about FDA standards?”

He puts half a lemon in the chicken instead and swaps the frittata for the roast.  It’s ready in an hour and fifteen minutes, faster than if it had been stuffed, a hungry Hermann thinks with smug satisfaction. They eat there in the kitchen, Newt standing and Hermann sitting on one of the bar stools.

“Thank you for dinner,” Hermann says, however begrudging. No matter what they’re arguing about, they never fail to thank the other for cooking.

“You’re welcome,” Newt says, and digs out the oysters from beneath the chicken, a chef’s treat and his right, Hermann knows. “Wish I could get the chicken crispy all the way around, but not in a cheffy way, you know? I hate basting.”

“Just take the skin off and cook it separately.”

“I said not cheffy, Hermann,” Newt grins. “Have you done that? Take the skin off a whole chicken so you can cook it just as crispy as you like?”

“Maybe,” Hermann says. “And maybe I put it back after.”

“Sheer lunacy, dude. I would just eat the skin.”

He’s picking at the skin even as he says it, with his bare hands, and Hermann feels a vein in his forehead pulse before he decides it’s harmless. He’s watched Newt wash his hands several times this evening, after all. Despite Hermann’s griping about his bare hands in the bakery, Newt is faultlessly professional in every step of food prep, even at home. Hermann recognizes the habits of someone who’s been through a working kitchen.

Newt doesn’t talk about what he did before the work he does at the co-op, and that is his right. Hermann is curious, of course. Someone with Newt’s set of skills and his definite knowledge of food chemistry can’t be just an enthusiastic hobbyist, the role he’s cast himself in these days.

And there’s Newt’s belongings, more or less a few boxes of books, esoteric gadgets for the kitchen, and his clothes, almost exclusively band shirts and jeans. The books are interesting, manuals and science periodicals, homey cookbooks that are prodigiously dirty, even for cookbooks.

Part of Hermann, the part that wishes he lived in a novel, is trying to detect the deeper story to his new and annoying roommate. He isn’t on Facebook and doesn’t come up in a google search for ‘Newt Schwartz’ or even ‘Newton Schwartz.’ Then an assumed name, maybe, which is terribly exciting as a prospect but it would spoil the fun to ask outright. Besides, though Newt has never talked about his past to Hermann despite his overall openness. Hermann can respect someone’s privacy.

“Well, gotta dash,” Newt says, pulling on a jacket and pouring his coffee into a thermos. “I can break down the chicken when I get back, but if you want to do it that means I can get broth started sooner.”

“I can do it,” Hermann says.

“You’re the best,” Newt says, stuffs one last piece of bread into his face, and then he’s gone. Hermann counts to five, and Newt opens the front door again, yelling about how he forgot his keys. The disruption which is Newt to Hermann’s solitary life is complemented by the surprisingly predictable rhythm of living with a hurricane.

In the ensuing silence which is to be the rest of Hermann’s evening, he breaks down the whole chicken, putting the bones and skin in a pot for Newt. Then he contemplates baking cookies, an easy path to simple deliciousness. He doesn’t even weigh ingredients when he’s making cookies, preferring to watch the dough come together with intuition and improvisation.

Two eggs, creamed with sugar, butter, and a tipple of bourbon because Hermann is trying to minimize his use of vanilla (Newt’s influence, he can concede, for it was Newt who brought his attention to the unsustainability of vanilla in the present world). Then he breaks in some of his sourdough starter and binds the mixture with flour. There are chocolate chips and dried cranberries in the pantry; he puts a handful each into the mixture and folds gently.

Dollops of dough go on a prepared cookie sheet, then into a hot oven while Hermann reads a book, another tipple of bourbon in a glass. Before Newt lived here, he wouldn’t have indulged in something like baking a whole batch of cookies; it’s an impulse left over from living in a house full of siblings with the same insatiable sweet tooth he has. But Newt eats his fair share of any sweets Hermann puts on the kitchen counter, and it feels... nice to feed someone.

Even Newt. Maybe especially Newt.

He can’t concentrate on his book. The liquor tickles his tongue.


End file.
